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Articles about speaking English, American accent, and whatever else seems relevant at the moment

Many people come to us asking “How can I lose my accent?”. I’ve even had a lovely woman from Brazil come in requesting that we “kill it”. First of all – there’s nothing wrong with having an accent. Accents reflect diversity and cultural richness, and fill our ears with such a variety of lovely music. An […]

In the years of working on American English pronunciation with clients from all over the world, we see certain words come up again and again that are simply DIFFICULT to pronounce well. Americans have their own lists of “Most Mispronounced Words” (e.g. “expresso” for “espresso”) but the words here are uniquely problematic for many non-natives. […]

Sometimes we meet a new client who wants to improve his or her American accent, but who already has very good English pronunciation. During the initial interview, a minute or two might go by where no traces of consonant or vowel substitutions occur, the intonation is fully American in nature, and even the oral posture […]

We have clients from every corner of the world; our map has pins from the northernmost part of Russia to the southernmost tip of South America. And of course the pronunciation issues we hear are as varied as the sounds a human can make. We find variations even within countries, especially the vast area of […]

We see many accent modification clients from all the various Spanish-speaking countries, mostly from Spain, Columbia, Mexico, Argentina, and Chile. Although each country’s accent has a slightly different flavor, there are many common features in areas of pronunciation, stress/rate/rhythm, intonation, and oral posture. Here are some suggestions to improve your American accent: Slow down. But don’t slow […]

I often hear non-native American English speakers using the term “going on holiday”. Let’s take a look at this. “Holiday” is an interesting word and you’ll see it pop up all over the place at this time of the year. However, Americans never say they’re “going on holiday”. Nor do we say “going on holidays” […]

I haven’t written an article in a while. I was in Italy for a couple of weeks and the trip messed with my “pace”. Slowed down my world in a warm and lovely way. Arrivederci-for-a-while to my usual fast-as-a-New-York-minute productivity. Meglio tardi che mai. Better late than never. This is where espresso/caffeine has its purpose. Speaking […]

As far as American English pronunciation goes, there are probably two situations that cause the most problems: Shifting stress in a word or phrase. “My mother lives in the WHITE House”. No, she does not. She lives in the “white HOUSE” down the street. Changing a single sound in a word, thus creating another word with […]

For the American English accent, stress is a good thing. You simply have to know WHERE the stress falls, which is easier said than done. This applies to not only the word level, but also for phrases and sentences. Some stress patterns are rule-based, some context-based. Some of them we pick up by ear, but knowing […]

In our accent training classes, when we’re working on pronunciation of American English phonemes (sounds), we usually start our clients with the TH. A beautiful thing about the letters T and H together is that they sound like a TH almost every time. No interpretation required! This is also true of letters like V, B, M, and a […]

Are accent reduction classes online as good as in-person training? We get asked this question all the time. THE DOWNSIDE: You won’t get to hang out in our new office with the nice view. You’ll have to print out your materials yourself. But we may get to meet your cat… Seriously, accent training over Skype […]

Halloween greetings! Here is some basic vocabulary and Halloween trivia you absolutely need to know for all your pagan partying this weekend. ‘Jack o’ lantern’ => in this country you’ll see them made from pumpkins. Jack o’ lanterns are believed to have originated in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands during the 19th century. They were […]